Evaluating Graduate Student Progress

Faculty are urged to submit a report to the dean of graduate and professional studies and the specific program director about any student whose attendance is irregular or whose work reflects academic difficulty. This permits the Office of Graduate Studies to connect students with resources to support them. The office may request mid-semester progress reports on any student who is on probation or who seems to be experiencing academic difficulty.

In most classes, with the exception of the Human Genetics program, students receive written narratives, called evaluations, from each of their teachers at the end of each semester to augment the traditional grading system. Evaluations summarize the continuing dialogue between teacher and student in class and conference, giving students a more complete sense of their progress. Evaluations are submitted electronically and are available for students to view or print through MySLC. Faculty also submit letter grades for all courses to the Office of the Registrar.

Credit and grades for yearlong courses are submitted in June. A student planning to leave a yearlong course at midyear should discuss their plans with the instructor within the first two weeks of December to ensure that sufficient work has been accomplished before the end of the first semester to earn full credit for that semester. The teacher will then submit a grade and credit for the fall semester to the Office of the Registrar.

All work is due by the last day of classes unless the student has asked for and been granted an official incomplete by the teacher. Students should complete the Graduate Student Incomplete Request Form, available on MySLC. Students are responsible for requesting an incomplete from faculty who determine whether the student is eligible. An incomplete may be awarded only if the student has already done substantial passing work in the course and the teacher judges the reasons for granting incomplete status to be valid, e.g., illness, serious personal crisis, accident, or extenuating academic circumstances. Faculty members are under no obligation to grant incompletes unless they feel they are warranted.

Students on academic probation are not eligible to receive an incomplete.

For fall semester incompletes, all work must be turned in by January 15, and for yearlong or spring semester courses, all work must be turned in by June 30. If there are exceptional circumstances that warrant an extension of these deadlines, the teacher must gain approval from the dean of graduate and professional studies.

Grades and evaluations for fall semester incompletes are due in the Office of the Registrar by February 15; grades and evaluations for spring incompletes are due by August 1.

Students are urged to write a course appraisal at the completion of every single-semester or yearlong course. These evaluate the contribution of the teacher to the student’s education and to Sarah Lawrence. The appraisals are read by the program director and by the dean of graduate and professional studies and are available to the Advisory Committee on Appointments. Faculty do not read them until their own student evaluations have been submitted to the Office of the Registrar.

Transcripts may be requested online at my.slc.edu/transcripts or getmytranscript.com. Requests are not accepted by telephone or e-mail. The fee for transcripts is $9.50 per copy. Mailed requests should include a check or money order payable to Sarah Lawrence College; cash is not accepted. Additional charges apply for use of an expedited delivery service or electronic PDF delivery, an option available only with online orders. Transcript fees cannot be billed to the student’s account. Transcripts are issued once payment is received and Student Accounts has given clearance. Transcripts will not be issued for students unless they have met their financial obligations to the College.

Official transcripts bear the College seal and the registrar’s signature. Transcripts include only courses in which academic credit has been earned and courses currently in progress. Transcripts issued to the student are stamped “Issued to Student” and enclosed in a sealed envelope. When forwarding them to another party, e.g., another college or university, potential employer, etc., where an official transcript is needed, the student should not open the envelope.

Sarah Lawrence College cannot provide copies of transcripts from other schools a student has attended. If such transcripts are needed, those schools should be contacted directly.

If a student is currently enrolled and the request is marked “hold for final grades” or “hold for degree,” the College will hold the request until grades and/or degree are posted, or until the student notifies the Office of the Registrar otherwise. If a student is currently enrolled in yearlong classes and wishes to include provisional grades with the transcript, the student must ask the teachers to submit provisional grades through MySLC and notify the registrar that the transcript should not be issued until the provisional grades are received. Please allow at least three to five business days to process transcript requests. Students who wish to have any evaluation included must include the name and year of the course with the transcript request. Allow 10 business days for transcripts with evaluations.

All students requiring certification of enrollment for veterans’ benefits, loan deferments, or any other reason should contact the Office of the Registrar at regoff@sarahlawrence.edu. Full-time status is defined as 10 credits or more per semester for graduate students. Part-time enrollment may have implications for financial aid, scholarships, student loans, visa status, and health insurance. It is the student’s responsibility to investigate these implications. Students enrolled in non-Sarah Lawrence off-campus programs must have an approved financial aid consortium agreement on file in order for the College to certify their enrollment. Information for students holding a foreign visa can be obtained from the graduate studies international student adviser.

Academic work is a shared enterprise that depends on a commitment to truthfulness. Sarah Lawrence students are expected to abide by the standards of intellectual integrity that govern the broader academic community to which the College belongs. These standards entail acknowledging the origin of the ideas, data, and forms of expression that one employs in one’s own work; giving due credit to the sources from which one has borrowed; and affording one’s reader a means of consulting those sources directly. Different academic disciplines may have varying conventions of citation and acknowledgment, and electronic media have increased the availability of oral and printed sources. Students are expected to consult faculty members, library staff, and academic style manuals for specific, up-to-date guidelines on citation.

In addition to the true representation of an individual’s work, academic integrity requires that students not abet others in any misrepresentation of their work. It also requires that students not interfere with the access of other students to shared material such as library books, course packets, etc. The Esther Raushenbush Library offers citation and reference educational workshops throughout the academic year.

For further information, students may contact the library at reserves@sarahlawrence.edu. Students who are unclear about proper citation or who have been found to have violated the academic integrity policy are especially urged to attend these workshops.

Offenses against academic integrity include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. plagiarism
   • failure to properly cite sources
   • submitting under a student’s own name work that is not entirely theirs
   • cheating or abetting others in the act of cheating
2. falsification of information, data, or attributions
3. submitting the same work for more than one class, within the same or different semesters, without the express permission of all faculty involved
4. stealing or defacing library materials or otherwise rendering them inaccessible to others

Faculty must discuss a suspected violation with the student (in person whenever possible). If a teacher discovers work believed to violate academic integrity after the semester ends, the teacher should confer with the student’s program director and the dean of graduate and professional studies about how best to proceed. Resolution will be handled through the processes that follow.

Any student who has reason to believe that another student has committed a violation of the policy on academic integrity should speak with the faculty or staff member involved, who shall be in charge of further proceedings. If, after this initial conversation, the faculty or staff member feels that the concern is justified, they shall immediately speak with the student believed to have committed the violation and that student’s program director.

Informal Resolution

Once the teacher has spoken with the student about the potential violation of the policy of academic integrity, the violation may be resolved informally by one or both of the following means:

1. The faculty member may refuse to accept the work in question and/or require that it be redone and/or reduce the student’s grade. The student will also be required to attend a library workshop on academic integrity.
2. The dean of graduate and professional studies, in consultation with the faculty or staff member and the student’s program director, may issue the student an informal warning and a clarification of College policies. Informal resolutions are used internally by the College, along with evaluations, to monitor a student’s academic progress. The student will also be required to attend a library workshop on academic integrity.

Formal Complaint

Faculty or staff members filing a formal complaint (one that may result in institutional discipline against a student) must provide the dean of graduate and professional studies with evidence in writing. This must include a copy of the work in question, a description of the alleged offense and how it was discovered, and anything else relevant to the charges. The dean of graduate and professional studies will make this evidence available to the student and their program director. The student will also have the opportunity to present the office with any materials deemed relevant to the charge. These materials will then be reviewed by a hearing committee made up of two faculty members of the Committee on Student Work and two faculty members of the Committee on Graduate and Professional Studies and chaired by the senior associate dean of studies for a hearing as described below.

Students on campus at the time a complaint is filed must meet with the hearing committee in person. In the event that a formal complaint is filed during a semester when the student is unable to be on campus for a hearing, the student has the option for the hearing to proceed via videoconferencing or by responding in writing to the charge and responses. If the student elects to respond in writing, the hearing committee will review all materials relevant to the hearing in that form.

The hearing committee shall review the evidence in the presence of the student, faculty or staff member, and the student’s program director. Directly after the review and discussion, the committee will decide whether or not a violation meriting disciplinary action on the part of the College has occurred. The student, faculty or staff member, and program director shall be notified in writing of the decision.

If the hearing committee decides that the student has not committed an offense or that there is insufficient evidence for a decision, no record of the inquiry shall be retained in the student’s files. If new information is presented at a later time, the faculty or staff member involved is responsible for reopening the charge and providing all relevant materials for re-examination by the committee.

If the hearing committee decides that the student has violated the policy on academic integrity, the committee shall decide which penalties are appropriate, including a letter of warning, academic probation, suspension for a specified period, expulsion, or recommendation to the provost and president that the degree be revoked (in the case of a student already graduated).

The student, faculty member, and program director shall be notified in writing of any penalties. A finding that the student has violated the College’s policy on academic integrity becomes part of the student’s permanent academic record and will be disclosed to outside institutions or agencies, e.g., graduate schools and state bar associations, upon request. If the student is allowed to continue in their program, they will be required to attend a library workshop on academic integrity.

A student who is found in violation of the academic integrity policy shall have the right to appeal the decision and/or the penalty before an independent, ad hoc appeals committee. This committee shall consist of the provost (or designee of the provost), a faculty member of the Committee on Student Work who was not on the original hearing committee, and a senior member of the library staff. The student must present all new relevant materials, including the grounds for the appeal, in writing. Note that an appeal is not a rehearing of the case. The appeals committee will consult with the hearing committee regarding its response to the appeal. The decision of the appeals committee is final.